Protack Off-Track

In today's Wilmington News Journal, candidate for governor, Mike Protack's plan for dealing with illegal immigration is unveiled. I suggest that it is misguided and the costs are severely underestimated.

It seems to me that the real problem we are facing in this regard is the under-collection of taxes as compared to the increase in public services provided. And this is because employers are breaking the laws by hiring illegal workers and by refusing to collect the wage taxes and withholdings. It seems from the article that Mr. Protack agrees with this concept.

Where we differ then is in how to deal with the problem. Protack suggests that by equipping the police with better technology, and by requiring everyone above the age of 16 to carry official identification, the government can make sure they know who is in the State and what they are doing. I say hogwash. The government is invasive enough as it is.

The cost of the technology and ID cards is miniscule as compared to the cost of harassment to all of us, illegals and legals alike. And Protack suggests that everyone that shows up on the computer as illegal be arrested on the spot and handed over to immigration officials. Does he have any clue what cost that would pose on our police systems? I can see it now... busloads of undocumented persons being bounced back and forth between Dover and Philadelphia because nobody has room for them and nobody will accept them. That plan is doomed.

Why don't we attack the problem where the problem is? The problem is with employers not collecting the taxes and withholdings. The problem is the wink-and-nod culture that we have cultivated here in America, by Americans, and for American greed. If we enforce the laws which require the collection of taxes and withholdings, then the rest of the problem will go away. We won't need multi-Billion Dollar boondoggle fences and other extreme losses of the personal liberties we cherish. Harassing the immigrants only attacks the symptom of the problem, not the cause of the problem.